Saturday, November 19, 2016

Roku UK Channel Store - Weekly RoundUp #193

Hi, everyone !!

The BIG NEWS this week, in terms of UK-specific Roku matters, is... thanks to some prolific output from developers, we've seen the HIGHEST-EVER NEW CHANNEL ADDITIONS IN ONE WEEK! Amazingly, there were OVER SIXTY NEW CHANNELS RELEASED in the last seven days - since my previous 'Weekly RoundUp' was published - which (in itself) marks only the first time this has happened since Roku devices were first introduced in the UK. To put this into perspective for you... that amounts to MORE NEW ROKU CHANNELS ADDED IN ONE WEEK to the Roku UK Channel Store THAN WERE ADDED TO NOW TV BOXES IN OVER THREE YEARS! :-O

Another landmark resulting from this huge influx of new Roku apps is that the total number of "public" channels available (i.e. those that feature in the Roku Channel Store) has now reached over three thousand four hundred (yes, that's 3,400+ Roku channels) on UK Roku devices and this figure does not include any of the "private" channels (of which there are hundreds) so it's clear we've come a long way from the forty-odd channels that were originally available to early adopters of Roku in the UK, such as myself, back in 2012. As you might expect, this means there's lots more ground for me to cover this week... but extra channels means more choice for all of us so (hopefully) it'll be worth it!

Unfortunately, Roku UK users are still subject to restrictions (imposed by Roku) and (bizarrely) remain unable to access the channel descriptions in the web channel store on the Roku (USA) website. That said, the majority of the text from those web store descriptions can also be found within the individual channel details from the built-in "Channel Store" (accessed via "Streaming Channels" from the main menu) on all Roku devices and, together with their associated screenshots (where available), should give you a pretty good indication of what those channels are about.

My advice to any UK-based readers of this blog is to ignore the links below (and to the left of) each channel icon shown below and (instead) rely on the link to the right (below each channel icon) which will redirect you to an 'Roku Guide' review for additional details on each channel. As it stands, the links below (and to the left of) each channel icon are (currently) only of use to readers of this blog from the USA. This means Roku users from the other "supported" regions of the world (i.e. Ireland, Canada, France and Mexico) are, like those of us in the UK, unable to browse the Roku Web Channel Store - which for now (at least) remains an exclusive privilege of Roku users in the USA. :-(

Hopefully Roku will (one day) wake-up to the fact that improving the experience for users in "other" Roku "regions" is just as important as it is for those who buy & use their products in the U.S. and denying access to the Roku website does not help the end-user experience for those of us (outside the USA) who wish to browse the web channel store. Meanwhile, that which Roku (apparently) doesn't want UK Roku users to see on their website (i.e. the list of new channels) is regularly summarised on this blog in my 'Weekly RoundUp' posts. So, without further ado, here's my 'Weekly RoundUp' of all the new Roku channels which were released between 13th and 19th November 2016:-